Posts Tagged ‘Michelle Dovey’

Today’s blog is about exhibitions in the West End, two of which have just ended- but you can investigate the work further online. I just didn’t get round to going soon enough…

Jenny Savile, Gagosian

This exhibition finished today, I’m afraid, but the drawings on show were stunningly good, as can be seen from the example below – just look at those knees coming out at you. They are huge, by the way (the drawings, not the knees; but then again, the knees are huge too, of course, because the drawing is). They are executed with a variety of mark makers, charcoal, pastel, ink too, I think, and most are covered with Twombly-like scribbles in pastel (the drawing below is an exception). What the purpose of the scribbling is, I’m not sure; I saw her interviewed on TV and she was talking about how children see and draw things, so maybe it’s something to do with that. Whatever the reason, the drawings are so bold, sure and strong that the scribbles don’t detract from the basic structure – although to my eyes, they don’t enhance it either.

An essential little exhibition, then; unmissable, as they say.

Francois Morellet, Annely Juda, Dering Street W1

This one is on until 24th June. Morellet is French and is now 90 years old. He founded the GRAV group in the 60’s, which believed that (I quote from the leaflet) “the notion of the sole artist was outdated and which focused on the direct participation of the public.” He uses materials like neon and sticky tape and his pieces are symmetrical, geometric and slightly off-kilter. Take the piece below – you want to push the two pairs of rectangles so that they line up to make a big one and the heavy black lines form a cross. Or at least, I do.

The pieces are neat, succinct, attractive in a passing way. Nice contrast to the nearby Savile.. until today, of course.

Done it again, I’m afraid – visited it in the last week. What you would have seen would have been a dozen? or so paintings like the one above, in bright colours, yellows, pinks, of her “sausage trees”. they are quite small – 36*48 inches, that sort of size. But now they’ve gone, planted out again.

The Music Lovers, Ken Russell, 1970

I’m on a Ken week at the moment, my appetite having been renewed by the fabulous series of TV films he made for Monitor and Omnibus, three of which have just come out on DVD.

The best of these was the one on Delius, “Song of Summer”, and I was delighted to see Max Adrian back as Rubinstein and Christopher Gable, Fenby in the Delius film, as Chiluvsky, Tchaikovsky’s male lover – that’s him on the right below, a far cry from his portrayal of Eric Fenby. I didn’t recognise him until the credits rolled. I thought Richard Chamberlain as Tchaikovsky was weak but Glenda Jackson as Nina riveting; beautiful, strong featured, able to transform to bleared, blasted and grotesque for the madhouse scenes. There’s a lot of Jackson in Maxine Peake, I think. Forgot to mention Maureen Pryor, Jelka in “Summer”, Nina’s procurator mother in “Music Lovers”

Elena, Zvyagintsev (2011)

This was on TV the other night; a murder story strangely unresolved at the end, it reminded me strongly of Chabrol. I was very pleased with this insight, until I looked the film up on Wikipedia and found that same comparison. Viagra as a murder weapon, though – that must be a first??

The Ring – don’t insert the video!!

A life painting that went wrong; the head was strange so I painted it out and put another one on – and got that malevolent Japanese girl from “The Ring”. Head’s now right, though.